10x10 (film)


10x10 is a 2018 British-American thriller film directed by Suzi Ewing and starring Luke Evans and Kelly Reilly. It was written and produced by Noel Clarke, through his production company Unstoppable Entertainment.

Plot

The movie starts with a man watching a woman with red hair, Cathy take a seat in a restaurant to eat lunch. He gets up and casually walks by her to wait outside at the car park for her.
She exits soon after and goes to her yoga lessons. He parks his car next to her car. When she comes out he grabs her from behind to gag her, in broad daylight. She screams for help just before he puts tape over her mouth and ties her hands on her back. There is a man close by but he doesn't hear her since he has headphones on with blaring music. He changes cars and puts her in the trunk to drive to his house outside of the city. You see him drop off Cathy in a small room, which appears to be a cellar.
He leaves her in there to talk to her the following day. She seems rather helpless but as the plot develops you see that she is quite feisty.
The house is outside the city, no houses close by. And the cellar is soundproof and behind a shielded wall. No way to escape unless he lets her go.
Once she gets her hands in front of her body by doing some gymnastics moves she attacks him when he wants to get her for lunch. She tries to call the police on the land line but he shoots the phone and so she desperately tries to get free. When they sit down to eat he asks her again for her name and she answers him. He freaks out and launches at her. She tries to strangle him from behind but he knocks her out and takes her back to the cellar.
As he exits the cellar his maid, Alondra, enters the house to be astonished at a disheveled and bleeding Lewis. He forgot to tell her to take a day off. She leaves again. He cleans up the mess and as he puts the stems of pussy willow in a new vase you get the feeling he is lost somehow. Earlier on he had also told her that if he wanted to kill her he would already have done that, but he obviously is after something else.
Cathy lies in the cellar, bleeding and in pain. He goes back in there and questions her for her name again. She tells him she already answered him. He doesn't seem to believe her. So keeps on asking her for her past life.
He admits to her that he has been watching her and that she is a liar.
Lewis asks again where she was born and this time she changes her story. He seems to know more about her. She said she studied English and owns a flower shop. But then she admits having studied medicine. As seen before he follows a public trial where several people have died. He somehow seems to be connected to those cases. Cathy is not Cathy, but rather Nathalie - Cathy, her twin sister, killed herself after their father, who had been the doctor for a football team, cheated on their mother with a cheerleader.
Lewis watches a movie where he cradles a baby. In the meantime Cathy calls the police, when she gets a little reception, with her well hidden mobile phone. He rushes in to ask her about the Charleston deaths and we find out that the third victim was his wife Alana Matthews Lewis. He accuses her of murder since his wife's blood was full of the rape drug GHB. She first apologizes for Alana's death. And he simply states that he knows that she killed his wife.
He continues to watch films of his little happy family, his wife Alana and his daughter Summer.
He continues watching films of his little happy family and seems to loose his grip more.
He returns to the cellar to threaten her with his gun. She starts to ramble on about her past life, as a child. How, after their father had left, they were treated like outcasts and that her sister couldn't take it anymore.
Nathalie tells him that she killed these people out of vengeance for what her father had done. And so he finds out that his wife had cheated on him, but he doesn't want to believe her. She admits to killing these people officially. Because they were sinners and in church they preach one shouldn't commit sins. He looks for evidence for his wife's cheating on videos and sees one part in particular where her phone rings, she looks at it impassively and ends the call.
He flips out and drives away with his car. In the meantime Nathalie tries to remove a broken shard of floor tile to cut open her restraints. He, in the meantime, stops at a lake. Suddenly the police show up and want to take a look at his car since an incident has been reported with a car involved which seems similar to his. Police officer one remarks how clean his car is and asks about the shoes in the trunk and the second officer says he is clean. After that they apologize for the inconvenience and leave.
He returns to his house telling her she had no right to kill his wife before he could talk to her. That she needs to go to the police and confess. She tries to stab him with the shard of floor tile and flees from the cellar. She tells him beforehand that she is now Cathy and won't let him ruin her now happy life.
He bleeds strongly and tries to lock her into the cellar again but she gets out and then it gets more complicated when Alondra, his house maid, comes home with his daughter. She shoots Alandra and takes Summer as hostage. She tells him this can only end with his and his daughter's death, who doesn't seem to be his biological daughter after all since his wife cheated on him.
Summer bites Cathy/Nathalie and runs away and hides in the cellar where Lewis finds his daughter.
He wants to run away with his daughter who remarks that Cathy is gone. He takes the recordings from the computer of the confessions of Cathy and runs to the garage where he gets cornered by her. He fights with her and she tries to stab him with a pitchfork but he drives it upwards to take her off balance and knocks her unconscious. Beforehand she knocks off the stop for the garage door and gets caught under it. Soon after the police arrive and the nightmare is over.
He hugs Summer and tells her that she is HIS baby girl, his daughter.
A man abducts a flower shop owner and holds her captive in a small, soundproof room in an effort to extract a dark secret from her past.

Cast

The film was shot at West London Film Studios, London, and in Atlanta, Georgia.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 'Fresh' approval rating of 67% based on reviews from 9 critics, with an average rating of 5.05/10. Noel Murray of the Los Angeles Times praised the performances and twists, but questioned some storytelling choices.